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 Motley's Temper and Language i45 comfiture for Motley. Again work was the refuge from the annoyances to which he had been subjected, but they were not forgotten. It is rather curious to note how the author's un- pleasant experience colours the story of the relations between Maurice of Nassau and John of Barneveld. The inability of the soldier, acting as statesman, to understand the diplomat is dwelt on in a fashion to show that General Grant was in the historian's thoughts when he wrote of Count Maurice. Indeed, John of Barneveld is a reflection of autobiography almost as much as Morton's Hope. Every point having to do with the ambitions of the individual province and the needs of the United Netherlands is coloured by the crisis through which the United States had just passed. Sometimes the implied parallel is apt, sometimes both strained and forced. It was Motley's tendency, in general, to indulge in comparisons and metaphor that once more troubled TTie Saturday Review.^ The carping critic evidently thought that all the expressions to which he objected were American. He did not realize that any worker in sixteenth century historical sources is living in the midst of just such language as was found objectionable. Sober documents are permeated with idioms not to be counted Americanisms; the letters of Elizabethan statesmen overflow with quaint twists and turns. Thus Motley's natural ten- dency in this direction was constantly fed during his researches into contemporary material. It was natural for him, writing from Vienna during a terrible drought, to declare that there was nothing green in Austria but the Archduke Maximilian, dreaming of an American empire (1863). It was phrases like that in history which shocked the reviewer. Other reviews in Great Britain and America were almost unanimous in their high praise for John of Barneveld. The Edinburgh Review said: "We can hardly give too much praise to the subtle al- chemy of the brain which has enabled him [Motley] to produce out of dull, crabbed, and often illegible State-papers, the vivid, graphic, and sparkling narrative which he has given to the worid." In the Netherlands, the book was viewed from a different standpoint. The period treated was one marked by the bitter- est kind of theological disputes. Motley thought he could ' 3 May, 1874. VOL. II — 10